Day: November 2, 2023

News Flash: Prison is Hell! Now more so with Climate Change

From the โ€œdoes anybody really give a damnโ€ department comes another inane news release that I never bothered to finish reading.ย โ€“ Anthony

From Watts Up With That?

From the โ€œdoes anybody really give a damnโ€ department comes another inane news release that I never bothered to finish reading. โ€“ Anthony

Prisons vulnerable to natural disasters, but ill-prepared

A study of 110 Colorado facilities found that 75%, housing 83% of the stateโ€™s incarcerated population, are at risk of climate-related hazards.

Three-quarters of Colorado prisons are likely to experience a natural disaster in the coming years, but due to aging infrastructure and outdated policies, many are ill-equipped to keep residents safe, suggests new CU Boulder research.

The study, published in the journal Natural Hazards Review, comes on the heels of one of the hottest summers on record and as U.S. lawmakers are calling for an investigation into a rash of what are believed to be heat-related deaths in the nationโ€™s prisons.

In other research, including interviews and focus groups with 35 formerly incarcerated Coloradans, the researchers found that most had already suffered from climate-related hazards, experiencing everything from โ€œbrutally hotโ€ or โ€œice coldโ€ cells to respiratory problems related to wildfire smoke and lack of toilet facilities during floods.

โ€œWe showed that the incarceration infrastructure in Colorado is highly vulnerable to climate- related hazards and that incarcerated people who are Black and Hispanic are at even greater risk,โ€ said Shideh Dashti, associate professor of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering and co-author on both studies. โ€œThis is a serious racial justice and environmental justice issue that needs to be addressed.โ€ 

Prisoners among the most vulnerable

Researchers have long known that marginalized communities, including people of color, low-income families and people with disabilities, are more vulnerable to climate change. But those behind bars face added risk, as they canโ€™t leave or adapt their space to escape threats. 

Facilities tend to be old, with poor insulation and outdated heat, ventilation and air-conditioning systems. Coloradoโ€™s oldest prison opened in 1871. About 40% of incarcerated individuals have a mental health diagnosis, and many take medication that impairs their ability to regulate body temperature.

โ€œWhen coupled with the extreme temperatures, wildfire smoke and floods that climate change brings, these conditions and lack of agency render incarcerated people extremely vulnerable,โ€ said co-author Ben Barron, a doctoral candidate and research assistant in the CU Boulder Department of Geography. 

Until recently, little research had been done in this area.

To address the gap, the interdisciplinary research team gathered census data on 110 Colorado facilities, including prisons, jails and juvenile detention and immigration detention centers. They used GIS mapping software and climate modeling data to calculate whether each facility was at low, medium or high risk of wildfire, heatwaves, floods and landslides.

They found that 74.5% of facilities housing 83% of Coloradoโ€™s incarcerated population have either moderate or high exposure to at least one hazard, and 17% percent are at risk of two.

One third of facilities, housing about 12,700 people, are at medium to high risk of wildfire.

Fifteen are at risk of flooding while, notably, 26 had no FEMA flood risk data available at all. 

About half of facilities are at risk of extreme heat. 

The study also found that incarceration facilities are more than twice as vulnerable to flooding than Colorado schools are. Thatโ€™s relevant, the authors said, because unlike prisoners, students are free to leave when flood risk arises.

Black people are significantly more likely than whites to be jailed in a facility at risk of extreme heat, while Hispanic or Latino people are at greater risk of experiencing a flood while incarcerated, the study found.

โ€˜Weโ€™re dying in hereโ€™

Dashti said the team had trouble getting information from many facilities about their engineering or architectural elements, but interviews with the formerly incarcerated painted a disturbing picture.

โ€œItโ€™s truly horrifying to listen to,โ€ said Barron, who conducted nine interviews and four focus groups for a separate paper that has not yet been published. 

Some interviewees recalled temperatures soaring into the upper-90s inside their cells. 

โ€œWe just want the doors open because weโ€™re dying in here,โ€™โ€ one told researchers.

When air conditioning was turned on, it was often left on full blast into the cooler months, making it so frigid that ice formed inside cell windows.

Other formerly incarcerated people described being awakened in the night by wildfire smoke and stuffing clothing over vents and windows to keep ash out of their cell. Some had to wait outside in long lines in triple-digit temperatures to get their medications.

โ€œI remember people just burning,โ€ recalled one 46-year-old man, describing his cell mate. โ€œHe was out there all day. And he was so purple, and he had edema on his head so bad you could put your thumb in his forehead, and it would just stay.โ€

โ€˜Cruel and unusual punishmentโ€™

Due to lack of emergency planning, prisoners in other states have been infamously left behind when natural disasters hit.

In 2005, during Hurricane Katrina, thousands were locked inside the Orleans Parish Prison for days, submerged in deep, sewage-tainted water and without power. In 2020, during wildfires in California, a wildfire came within a few miles of two state prisons. While neighbors were evacuated, prisoners were left in place.

Colorado prisons have been evacuated at least two times: In 2013, a fire forced evacuation of 900 people from Territorial Correctional Facility in Caรฑon City. In Barronโ€™s interviews, a person evacuated that day described it as โ€œchaos.โ€ In May 2023, hundreds at the Delta Correctional Center were evacuated due to the threat of flooding.

Dashti said that, as an engineer, she has been horrified to learn of what she equates to โ€œcruel and unusual punishmentโ€ in U.S. prisons. She hopes the findings will encourage governments to update building codes and policies to ensure that facilities are more resilient and humane in the face of more frequent and severe natural hazards expected as a result of climate change. 

โ€œBut we canโ€™t simply engineer out way out of the problem,โ€ she said. 

The U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, imprisoning 700 out of every 100,000 people, compared to 115 out of 100,000 for its peer nations. In Colorado alone, about 31,000 people are currently behind bars. 

Dashti, Barron and their interdisciplinary research team believe more support should also be provided for education, mental health care, public housing and other means to keep people from committing crimes or help rehabilitate them when they do. 

Some prisons should be closed, they argue.

โ€œItโ€™s not enough to say weโ€™ll just retrofit and add air conditioning,โ€ said Barron. โ€œWe need to stop putting so many people in jail.โ€

Other co-authors on the Natural Hazards Review paper include: Postdoctoral Associate Sara Glade, environmental design student Caleb Schmitz, Environmental Design Associate Professor Shawhin Roudbari, engineering professors Abbie Liel and Shelly Miller, and Phaedra Pezzullo, associate professor in the Department of Communication.

Californiaโ€™s EV conundrums

Without crude oil that is the basis for most of the products now in society, citizens of developing nations may never be able to enjoy the abundant lifestyles available to wealthier countries.

From ย CFACT

Without crude oil that is the basis for most of the products now in society, citizens of developing nations may never be able to enjoy the abundant lifestyles available to wealthier countries.

As California is attempting to lead the world toward zero crude oil production, worldwide efforts to meet the supply chain demands of extracting 4 billion gallons of crude oil every day from this planet, there may be shortages and inflation in perpetuity to continue to make all the products of our materialistic society, being enjoyed by the current residents in the wealthier countries on this planet.

Meanwhile, the list of conundrums surrounding Californiaโ€™s EV mandate is growing:

  1. Lack of a sufficient number of buyers outside the elite profile of existing EV owners.
  2. The Governmentโ€™s lack of ethical, moral, and social responsibilities, by encouraging the social injustice of subsidies for well-off people who can afford EVs, continues exploiting the human rights of workers with yellow, brown, and black skin in the supply chain that are mining for exotic minerals and metals in poorer developing countries to support the green movement in wealthy countries.
  3. Conditions have grown so dire for the supply chain of raw materials needed for EV batteries that Washington is cracking down on EV components that have links to Chinese Uyghur slave labor that are helping to build EVs.
  4. Due to EV battery fire potentials, questionable means of transporting EVs from foreign manufacturers to the USA consumers.
  5. Concerns about occasional electricity from wind and solar being able to charge EV batteries.
  6. The limited life of the EV battery compared with conventional vehicles, the limitations of EVs during emergencies such as fires, floods, and power blackouts.
  1. China restricting exports of graphite, a key mineral used for making EV batteries.
  2. Automakers will continue to face challenging supply chain issues to make all the parts and components of EVs as the supply of oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil will be in shorter supply. The typical car today is made with about 260 pounds of plastics.

The crude oil industryโ€™s time in California is limited, and the oil-refining industry is behaving as any industry would in comparable circumstances by transitioning its operations away from gasoline to activities that will prove to be more profitable in the long run. And as crude oil supply falls further, much higher gasoline prices will become a way of life for Californians, as the conundrums associated with EV mandates may be growing.

Standard economic logic indicates that high California gas prices should encourage fuels supply to be shipped to California from other states. But this doesnโ€™t happen because no other state formulates Californiaโ€™s unique gasoline blend.

In addition, the West Coast fuels market is isolated from other supply/demand centers as California is an energy island. The Sierra Mountains are a natural barrier that prevents the state from pipeline access to any of that excess oil. As such, the West Coast is susceptible to unexpected outages from West Coast refineries as it is unable to refill an unexpected loss in supply by quickly supplying additional products from outside of the region.

If gasoline is imported into California, which does occur when a California refinery goes offline for repair or maintenance, California typically imports gasoline via marine shipments, which usually take three to four weeks to deliver. To meet the demands of the fourth largest economy in the world, imports of gasoline into California come from sources that include India, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Russia, and New Brunswick, Canada. This process is expensive, and takes weeks for the fuel to arrive at California ports.

Californiaโ€™s regulatory and tax landscape has led to a steady drop in the number of California refineries. In the early 1980s, when Californiaโ€™s population was 24 million, there were 40 operating refineries in the state, which refined over 2.5 million barrels of crude oil per day. Forty years later, with a population of 39 million, the number of refineries dropped by 14, which refines less than 2 million barrels of crude oil per day currently. The reality is that gasoline and diesel supply is decreasing while demand is increasing; is fuel (no pun intended) for continuous price increases.

Refineries are also shutting down because California has imposed a new regulation that bans the sale of gas-powered cars and light trucks by 2035, and the State requires 35 percent of new car sales to be zero-emission vehicles by 2026. It makes no economic sense to invest in new capacity in a state that has de facto outlawed the industryโ€™s existence in a few years.

In addition, refineries are also shutting down because there are incredibly lucrative state and federal tax incentives to produce biofuels, totaling a whopping $1 per gallon, and cease the manufacturing of gasoline and diesel. A Marathon refinery that had a crude oil refining capacity of 166,000 barrels per day is being retrofitted to produce biodiesel and is expected to be producing biofuel next year. Similarly, Global Clean Energy is converting a 66,000-barrel-per-day-capacity refinery in Bakersfield to biodiesel, and World Energy has invested $350 million to convert a 50,000-barrel-per-day-capacity refinery to biodiesel.

California regulators and legislators are getting what they want: less crude oil produced and consumed. And Californians, particularly low- and middle-income households, are paying a dear price for the preferences of those Tesla-driving legislators and regulators as fuel demand remains against a diminishing supply of gasoline and diesel.

You cannot build something from nothing. Thus, Californiaโ€™s EV conundrums will most likely grow as everything that needs electricity, and every infrastructure, has parts and components that are made from oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil, from the light bulb to the iPhone, defibrillator, and all the parts of toilets, spacecraft, and EVs.

Author

Ronald Stein

Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book โ€œClean Energy Exploitations.โ€

This Isnโ€™t the First Time in Human History Our Winters Have Becomeย Milder

Thisย Letter to the Editor,ย written by CO2 Coalition Memberย Euan Mearns, was published in The Press and Journal, October 26, 2023.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Euan is firing on all cylinders now!!

Sir, with reference to the letter from Ivan Reid, 18th October. He is of course totally correct; our winters have become less snowy and milder than during our youth. I recall the deep snow drifts on Kirriemuir Hill in the 1960s.

And during my grouse beating days in Glen Clova in the 1970s they used to set aside a half day to shoot hares and another half day to shoot capercaillie. Times have changed, and in 2020 illegal shooting of mountain hares (culling) was banned in Scotland (Wikipedia). Thousands used to be shot every year. It does not seem to be necessary to call on climate change to explain the demise of the mountain hare. Hopefully the population will soon recover.

In the countryside I frequent most often in Aberdeenshire and Perthshire, there is an abundance of buzzards and ospreys, red-dear and roe-dear, seals, beavers and sadly many dead badgers along our main roads.

Melting Alpine glaciers are perhaps the most poignant symbol of a slowly warming world. However, a little-known fact is that Alpine glaciers have all but melted completely 12 times in the last 10,000 years (since the end of the last glaciation). This is known through Carbon 14 dating of woody fragments found in the ice. These dates form clusters signifying times when trees grew in the ice basins from where the glaciers now flow.

The exact cause of these cyclical changes in glacier length is unknown, but a likely candidate is cyclical changes to ocean currents. The depth of the last cold and snowy trough occurred around 1850 and warming will likely continue for another few hundred years until the glaciers have all but disappeared as was the case when Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants in 218 BC at a time called The Roman Warm Period. Perhaps Scotlandโ€™s climate is affected by these same cyclical forces?

PS With reference to Mr. Hannan, 19th October: pre-industrial CO2 in the atmosphere was 0.028% and today it is 0.042%. 3% is on the threshold of being harmful, but current levels are nowhere near this dangerous threshold.

Dr Euan Mearns

Aberdeen

Scandal: Leaked Pfizer Supply Agreement Shows EU Was Fully Aware Vaccine Was Unsafe

The previously blacked out secret contracts between Pfizer and the EU have finally been leaked and, as expected, the content is scandalous. We already know that we haven’t always gotten the truth from the government about Corona in recent years. The Pfizer leaks are now just another gust of wind toppling the house of cards of lies.

From NoTricksZone

Byย P Gosselinย onย 1. November 2023

Pfizer warned the EU that its mRNA vaccine had been โ€œrapidly developedโ€ and that its side effects were โ€œunknownโ€. Yet, the EU went ahead and sold it to the European public as โ€œsafe and effectiveโ€ anyway.ย 

In his latest YouTube video, already with 200,000 views, bestselling German author Marc Friedrich reports how the recently leaked mRNA vaccine MANUFACTUURING AND SUPPLY AGREEMENT between Pfizer and the EU show that the EU grossly misled its own citizensโ€.

The claim that the Pfizer and Biontech vaccines were โ€œsafe and effectiveโ€ was totally made up by the EU.

โ€œRapidly developedโ€, unknown adverse effects

On page 48 of the Manufacturing and Supply Agreement โ€“ which had been kept hidden from the public โ€“ Pfizer warned Europe that its โ€œVaccineโ€ had been โ€œbeing rapidly developedโ€ and that it would be up to the EU Member States to study the vaccine effects once provided:

Excerpt, page 48 of the Manufacturing and Supply Agreementย with the EU.

The text continues on the next page, where Pfizer explicitly warned that as a result, โ€œthe long-term effects are not currently knownโ€ and that it was not known if the โ€œVaccineโ€ would have any โ€œadverse effectsโ€.

Excerpt, Manufacturing and Supply Agreementย with the EU.

Marc Friedrich calls the whole affair a huge scandal and โ€œa pandemic of liesโ€.ย The manufacturing and supply agreement made with the EU is similar to the one between Pfizer and South Africa, which also was leaked to the public. The Purchaser (South Africa) โ€œacknowledges that the long-term effects and efficacy of the Vaccine are not currently known.โ€

Excerpt, Supply Agreement with South Africa

The question now arises: If Pfizer did not know how safe and effective the vaccine was, and told the EU it was impossible to know, then why did the EU go ahead tell the public it was safe and effective? There was no way of knowing.

Malicious

This is nothing too difficult to understand. Imagine Boeing warning airlines that itโ€™s new plane had been โ€œrapidly developedโ€ and so it was unknown if the plane would stay intact in midflight. At the same time regulators would simply give it the green light, and then tell the public the plane was safe and people should have no worries boarding it. Even worse, the government and employers would even mandate flying in it.

Later, after crashing multiple times, government regulators would then not keep safety statistics and just claim that the events were โ€œextremely rareโ€ and that overall the product rendered more good than harm. The shoddy planes would also be used in place of all other transport.

Itโ€™s little wonder that governments around the world are in no hurry to investigate the millions of COVID vaccine deaths and injuries. You canโ€™t expect the guilty to prosecute themselves.

NCAR Study: Otis Rapid Hurricane Intensification was Not Driven by Climate Change

From the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a breath of fresh air in explaining rapid intensification of hurricanes, without playing the climate blame-game. From the paper:ย โ€˜Forecasting these โ€œrapid intensificationโ€ events is a challenge, in part because we do not fully understand the science behind rapid intensification.โ€˜โ€“ Anthony

From Watts Up With That?

SCIENTISTS FIND TWO WAYS THAT HURRICANES RAPIDLY INTENSIFY

New study may help forecasters better predict dangerous storms

Hurricanes that rapidly intensify for mysterious reasons pose a particularly frightening threat to those in harmโ€™s way. Forecasters have struggled for many years to understand why a seemingly commonplace tropical depression or tropical storm sometimes blows up into a major hurricane, packing catastrophic winds and driving a potentially deadly surge of water toward shore.

Now scientists have shed some light on why this forecasting challenge has been so difficult to overcome: thereโ€™s more than one mechanism that causes rapid intensification. New research by scientists at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) uses the latest computer modeling techniques to identify two entirely different modes of rapid intensification. The findings may lead to better understanding and prediction of these dangerous events. 

โ€œTrying to find the holy grail behind rapid intensification is the wrong approach because there isnโ€™t just one holy grail,โ€ said NCAR scientist Falko Judt, lead author of the new study. โ€œThere are at least two different modes or flavors of rapid intensification, and each one has a different set of conditions that must be met in order for the storm to strengthen so quickly.โ€

One of the modes discussed by Judt and his co-authors occurs when a hurricane intensifies symmetrically, fueled by favorable environmental conditions such as warm surface waters and low wind shear. This type of abrupt strengthening is associated with some of the most destructive storms in history, such as Hurricanes Andrew, Katrina, and Maria. Meteorologists were stunned this week when the winds of Hurricane Otis defied predictions and exploded by 110 miles per hour in just 24 hours, plowing into the west coast of Mexico at category 5 strength.

Judt and his co-authors also identified a second mode of rapid intensification that had previously been overlooked because it doesnโ€™t lead to peak winds reaching such destructive levels. In the case of this mode, the strengthening can be linked to major bursts of thunderstorms far from the stormโ€™s center. These bursts trigger a reconfiguration of the cycloneโ€™s circulation, enabling it to intensify rapidly, reaching category 1 or 2 intensity within a matter of hours.

This second mode is more unexpected because it typically occurs in the face of unfavorable conditions, such as countervailing upper-level winds that shear the storm by blowing the top in a different direction than the bottom.

โ€œThose storms are not as memorable and theyโ€™re not as significant,โ€ Judt said. โ€œBut forecasters need to be aware that even a storm thatโ€™s strongly sheared and asymmetric can undergo a mode of rapid intensification.โ€

The new study appeared in theย Monthly Weather Review,ย a journal of the American Meteorological Society. It was funded by the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research and by the U.S. National Science Foundation, which is NCARโ€™s sponsor. It was co-authored by NCAR scientists Rosimar Rios-Berrios and George Bryan.ย 

A SERENDIPITOUS FINDING

Rapid intensification occurs when the winds of a tropical cyclone increase by 30 knots (about 35 miles per hour) in a 24-hour period. Judt came across the two modes of rapid intensification when working on an unrelated project.

The discovery emerged after Judt produced a very high-resolution, 40-day computer simulation of the global atmosphere, using the NCAR-based Model for Prediction Across Scales (MPAS). That simulation, run at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center, was designed for an international project comparing the output of leading atmospheric models, which have achieved unprecedented detail because of increasingly powerful supercomputers.

Once Judt produced the model, he was curious to examine storms in the simulation that rapidly intensified. By looking at a number of cases across the worldโ€™s ocean basins, he noticed that rapid intensification occurred in two distinct ways. This had not previously been apparent in models, partly because previous simulations captured only individual regions instead of allowing scientists to track a spectrum of hurricanes and typhoons across the worldโ€™s oceans.

Judt and his co-authors then combed through actual observations of tropical cyclones and found a number of real-world instances of both modes of rapid intensification. 

โ€œIt was kind of a serendipitous finding,โ€ Judt said. โ€œJust by looking at the storms in the simulation and making plots, I realized that storms that rapidly intensify fall into two different camps. One is the canonical mode in which thereโ€™s a tropical storm when you go to bed and when you wake up itโ€™s a category 4. But then thereโ€™s another mode that goes from a tropical storm to a category 1 or 2, and it fits the definition of rapid intensification. Since nobody has those storms on their radar, that mode of rapid intensification went undetected until I went through the simulation.โ€

Meteorologists have long known that favorable environmental conditions, including very warm surface waters and minimal wind shear, can generate rapid intensification and bring a cyclone to category 4 or 5 strength with sustained winds of 130 mph or higher. In their new paper, Judt and his co-authors referred to that mode of rapid intensification as a marathon because the storm keeps intensifying symmetrically at a moderate pace while the primary vortex steadily amplifies.

Judt described Hurricane Otis as a fast marathon because it intensified symmetrically but at an unusually rapid pace, marked by an 80 mph increase in wind speed during a 12-hour period. 

The study team labeled the other mode of rapid intensification as a sprint because the intensification is extremely quick but generally doesnโ€™t last as long, with storms peaking at category 1 or 2 strength and sustained winds of 110 mph or less. In such cases, explosive bursts of thunderstorms lead to a rearrangement of the cyclone and the emergence of a new center, enabling the storm to become more powerful โ€” even in the face of adverse environmental conditions. 

The paper concludes that the two modes may represent opposite ends of a spectrum, with many cases of rapid intensification falling somewhere in between. For instance, rapid intensification may begin with a chain of discrete events such as a burst of thunderstorms that are characteristic of the sprint mode, but then transition into a more symmetrical mode of intensification that is characteristic of the marathon mode.

A question for future research is why bursts of thunderstorms can cause about 10% of storms in an unconducive environment to rapidly intensify, even though the other 90% do not, Judt said. 

โ€œThere could be a mechanism we havenโ€™t discovered yet that would enable us to identify the 10 from the 90,โ€ he said. โ€œMy working hypothesis is that itโ€™s random, but itโ€™s important for forecasters to be aware that rapid intensification is a typical process even in an unfavorable environment.โ€

Note:ย NCAR is working with NSF and NOAA to develop a next-generation radar,ย the Airborne Phased Array Radar (APAR)ย that can revolutionize our ability to understand and ultimately forecast high-impact weather events such as hurricanes.ย 

Mark Lynas โ€˜99% Consensusโ€™ on Climate Change โ€“ Busted in Peer Review.

Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature? A study which claims over 99% consensus appears to be unsupported by the evidence, because neutral papers were misclassified, and skeptic papers were ignored.

From Watts Up With That?

From email:

My name is Yonatan Dubi, I am a professor of chemistry and physics at Ben Gurion University, Israel. I am also one of Israelโ€™s leading advocates for rational environmentalism and climate realism. Together with a few colleagues we have conducted a very nice research, detailing and quantifying the flaws in the famous consensus study by Lynas et al, which (falsely) claimed the ridiculous 99% consensus. After a year long journey, our paper was finally published in the peer reviewed journal Climate, the link is https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/11/11/215.

The conclusion does not follow from the dataโ€: Israeli study trashes extreme global warming consensus claim.

Ninety-Nine Percent? Re-Examining the Consensus on the Anthropogenic Contribution to Climate Change 

David Dentelski , Ran Damari , Yanir Marmor , Avner Niv , Mor Roses  and Yonatan Dubi 

Climate 2023, 11(11), 215; https://doi.org/10.3390/cli11110215

Received: 16 September 2023 / Revised: 24 October 2023 / Accepted: 26 October 2023 / Published: 30 October 2023

(This article belongs to the Section Policy, Governance, and Social Equity)

Abstract

Anthropogenic activity is considered a central driver of current climate change. A recent paper, studying the consensus regarding the hypothesis that the recent increase in global temperature is predominantly human-made via the emission of greenhouse gasses (see text for reference), argued that the scientific consensus in the peer-reviewed scientific literature pertaining to this hypothesis exceeds 99%. This conclusion was reached after the authors scanned the abstracts and titles of some 3000 papers and mapped them according to their (abstract) statements regarding the above hypothesis. Here, we point out some major flaws in the methodology, analysis, and conclusions of the study. Using the data provided in the study, we show that the 99% consensus, as defined by the authors, is actually an upper limit evaluation because of the large number of โ€œneutralโ€ papers which were counted as pro-consensus in the paper and probably does not reflect the true situation. We further analyze these results by evaluating how so-called โ€œskepticโ€ papers fit the consensus and find that biases in the literature, which were not accounted for in the aforementioned study, may place the consensus on the low side. Finally, we show that the rating method used in the study suffers from a subjective bias which is reflected in large variations between ratings of the same paper by different raters. All these lead to the conclusion that the conclusions of the study does not follow from the data.

The original study, to which the above is a response;

Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature

Mark Lynas, Benjamin Z Houlton and Simon Perry

Published 19 October 2021 โ€ข ยฉ 2021 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd
Environmental Research Letters, Volume 16, Number 11Citation Mark Lynas et al 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 114005DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966

Abstract

While controls over the Earthโ€™s climate system have undergone rigorous hypothesis-testing since the 1800s, questions over the scientific consensus of the role of human activities in modern climate change continue to arise in public settings. We update previous efforts to quantify the scientific consensus on climate change by searching the recent literature for papers sceptical of anthropogenic-caused global warming. From a dataset of 88125 climate-related papers published since 2012, when this question was last addressed comprehensively, we examine a randomized subset of 3000 such publications. We also use a second sample-weighted approach that was specifically biased with keywords to help identify any sceptical peer-reviewed papers in the whole dataset. We identify four sceptical papers out of the sub-set of 3000, as evidenced by abstracts that were rated as implicitly or explicitly sceptical of human-caused global warming. In our sample utilizing pre-identified sceptical keywords we found 28 papers that were implicitly or explicitly sceptical. We conclude with high statistical confidence that the scientific consensus on human-caused contemporary climate changeโ€”expressed as a proportion of the total publicationsโ€”exceeds 99% in the peer reviewed scientific literature.

โ€ฆRead more: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966

What a surprise โ€“ a study which claims over 99% consensus appears to be unsupported by the evidence, because neutral papers were misclassified, and skeptic papers were ignored.

Lynas, et. al., is probably the worst case of confirmation bias ever published. Of course, we all knew that when we first saw it. The Lynas paper was all about grabbing headlines, not science. Now watch the fun as Lynas et. al. tries to defend their paper, with even greater levels of nonsense.

Enceladus, Previous Speedster

Enceladus is named after a giant in Greek mythology. Enceladus has the whitest, most reflective surface in the solar system. The moon creates a ring of its own as it orbits Saturnโ€”its spray of icy particles spreads out into the space around its orbit, circling the planet to form Saturnโ€™s E ring.

From AAS Nova

Byย Ben Cassese

A mechanical orrery, a device used to represent the motions of planets and their moons [Sage Ross, CC-BY-SA-3.0]

Enceladus, one of Saturnโ€™s moons, is currently being tugged around and heated up by another moon named Dione. How the two ended up in this arrangement is a mystery, since to get there, Enceladus must have avoided getting caught up in a resonance with another moon named Tethys. A recent article offers a possible explanation: Enceladus may have blitzed over to its current position in a short-lived burst of speed.

Enceladus, as seen by the Cassini mission in 2015. [NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute]

Dynamic Moons

We typically imagine that moons circle their host planets with clockwork regularity, meaning that they precisely trace out the same path at the same speed for all time. However, true reality cannot be described by a system composed of rigid gears. Instead, moons very slowly change their orbits, wandering around to different separations, eccentricities, and inclinations. Through simulations of their motions over millions of years, astronomers can reveal that what initially looks dull and regular is actually just a snapshot of rich, dynamical behaviors.

Predicting these motions is a challenging task since moons are motivated to wander by forces that are difficult to model. Moons are not homogenous, inflexible solid spheres, meaning they can โ€œsquishโ€ and โ€œrelaxโ€ repeatedly as they get tugged around. This squishing, referred to as tidal interactions, saps energy from the moonsโ€™ orbits by converting it to heat that warms up the rock and ice of each moon. Describing this behavior relies on knowing quantities that are difficult to measure, such as the composition and interior structure of the planet and each moon.

An illustration of how Encleadusโ€™s speed affects its response to a resonance. When moving faster (right panel), Enceladus mostly skips over the resonance and remains at a lower inclination compared to the inclination it would have reached had it been moving slower (left panel). Click to enlarge. [ฤ†uk and El Moutamid 2023]

Obstacle to Dione

An illustration of how Encleadusโ€™s speed affects its response to a resonance. When moving faster (right panel), Enceladus mostly skips over the resonance and remains at a lower inclination compared to the inclination it would have reached had it been moving slower (left panel). Click to enlarge. [ฤ†uk and El Moutamid 2023]One of Saturnโ€™s many moons, Enceladus, is currently caught in a resonance with another moon named Dione, meaning it completes nearly exactly two laps around Saturn each time Dione circles the planet once. This configuration greatly enhances tidal forces, and Enceladus is so affected by tides that at least a portion of its icy interior has melted into a subsurface ocean.

But how did the pair of moons reach this configuration? By asserting a guess about the parameters that govern the systemโ€™s tidal parameters, astronomers can simulate the motion of the moons over millions of years, then check how well their arrangement matches the present day. This was the technique used by Matija ฤ†uk (SETI Institute) and Maryame El Moutamid (Cornell University) in their recent article that revealed an interesting conclusion: to have reached its current resonance with Dione, Enceladus must have crossed through a region of parameter space where it risked getting trapped into a resonance with a different moon, Tethys.

Dione, whose radius is roughly equal to the distance between Boston and Baltimore. This image was taken with the Cassini spacecraftโ€™s narrow-angle camera on June 22, 2017. [NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute]

Spurt of Speed

The fact that we see Enceladus in a low-inclination resonance with Dione today implies that it must have blitzed through this other resonance, drifting so quickly that it managed to skate through unaffected. It could not have kept up this speed for long, however, otherwise it would have been swallowed by Saturn by now. Instead, ฤ†uk and El Moutamid posit that Enceladus must have experienced a short-lived burst of tidal evolution, a time in which it managed to hop over a resonance with Tethys only to get stuck in one with Dione.

Exactly what caused this burst is unclear, as are the effects of complicated resonances with the fluid interior of Saturn itself. Even so, just by knowing this burst happened, astronomers can another chapter to add to the complex history of this fascinating, watery moon.

Citation

โ€œA Past Episode of Rapid Tidal Evolution of Enceladus?โ€ Matija ฤ†uk and Maryame El Moutamid 2023ย Planet. Sci. J.ย 4ย 119.ย doi:10.3847/PSJ/acde80

Climate Change: A Curious Crisis

The fundamental problem with the climate crisis narrative is that it is simplistic and gives us only one side of the story.ย It is as though man-made climate change had been put on trial in the court of public opinion on a charge of crimes against the planet and humanity โ€“ but with only the prosecution case presented to the jury.ย 


From Climate Etc.

By Iain Aitken

As explained in my new eBook,ย Climate Change: A Curious Crisis, the climate change โ€˜debateโ€™ has long-since become a Manichaean, deeply polarized, โ€˜you are either with us or against usโ€™ war of words in which both sides accuse the other of being closed-minded and refusing to accept the โ€˜factsโ€™.

Instead of a respectful exchange of views and the seeking of mutual understanding and common ground we tend to find sarcasm and ridicule and ad hominem attacks, as mutually intolerant, entrenched positions have arisen based on different interpretations of the science and evidence and different perceptions of risk. What should have been a mutually cooperative, disinterested, value-free search for the truth (basically, โ€˜scienceโ€™) has morphed into a combative, biased, value-laden promotion of positions and โ€˜point scoringโ€™ over opponents (basically, โ€˜politicsโ€™). Lest they yield any dialectical ground to their opponents, โ€˜doomstersโ€™ are deeply reluctant to admit (perhaps even to themselves) that climate change might actually be predominantly natural and benign โ€“ and โ€˜deniersโ€™ are deeply reluctant to admit (perhaps even to themselves) that climate change might actually be predominantly man-made and dangerous.

So what is the doomstersโ€™ story? One of the most prominent and vocal doomsters is Antรณnio Guterres, the UN Secretary General, who, in August 2021, described the IPCCโ€™s Sixth Assessment Report as โ€˜a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouseโ€‘gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate riskโ€™. And in response to the news that July 2023 was likely to be the warmest July since records began he stated, โ€˜The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived.โ€™ So what is all this โ€˜irrefutable evidenceโ€™ of the climate crisis that has so convinced Guterres and his fellow doomsters? Letโ€™s examine a few representative examples:

(1) We know, based on the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory, that increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere (e.g. by burning fossil fuels) will cause global warming to occur.

(2) We know, based on ice core data (and more recently direct atmospheric measurements), that in post-industrialization times the carbon dioxide level in our atmosphere has already risen by about 50% to a level that is unprecedented in more than 14 million years โ€“ and the rise rate is accelerating.

(3) We know, based on the Anthropogenic Global Warming theory, that the post-industrialization global warming cannot be explained by natural phenomena.

(4) We know, based on all the leading temperature datasets, that in post-industrialization times about 1.2ยบC of global warming has already occurred, a level of warming that is unprecedented in at least the last 2,000 years (and probably the last 125,000 years) โ€“ and the rise rate is accelerating.

(5) We know, according to the World Meteorological Organisation, that the last 8 years have been the hottest years since records began and each decade since the 1980s has been hotter than the previous one.

(6) We know, based on global tide gauge and satellite altimetry data, that in post-industrialization times the global mean sea level has already risen by about 9 inches as a result of global warming โ€“ and the rise rate is accelerating.

(7) We know, based on satellite observations, that Arctic sea ice has already declined by 50% and is declining at a rate of about 12% per decade as a result of global warming โ€“ and the decline rate is accelerating.

(8) We know, based on observations and attribution studies, that extreme weather around the world has already become more frequent and intense and, based on the worldโ€™s largest study of climate-related mortality, that that is already causing almost 10% (5 million) of global deaths each year.

(9) We know, based on the Paris Climate Accord, that warming must be limited to 1.5ยบC to avoid the most dangerous climate change impacts โ€“ and that based on the current warming trends that critical threshold may be crossed by 2030.

(10) We know that by the end of this century there could be up to 6ยบC of warming (i.e. exceeding the 1.5ยบC critical threshold by 4.5ยบC) potentially resulting in catastrophic climate change.

The adverse climate change impacts noted above are just representative โ€“ many more could have been added, such as ocean acidification, coral reef loss, biodiversity loss and species extinctions โ€“ and thatโ€™s even before the consideration of potential โ€˜tipping pointsโ€™ into irreversible climate change impacts. The climate crisis narrative (i.e. the cause and effect storyline) based on such evidence is simple and certain and compelling: our escalating burning of fossil fuels has caused a huge and unprecedented and accelerating rise in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere which have in turn caused a huge and unprecedented and accelerating rise in global surface temperatures which has in turn already caused huge and unprecedented and accelerating climate change impacts on the planet and mankind โ€“ and very soon itโ€™s going to get catastrophically worse, unless we stop climate change by stopping burning fossil fuels. In this narrative climate change is a new and terrifying man-made phenomenon, an existential threat that has arisen as an insidious โ€˜by productโ€™ of rampant industrialization and capitalism and that it can, and must, be stopped by urgent global decarbonization.

So how many of the above ten statements are actually true? I would argue that all of them are true โ€“ at least exactly as worded โ€“ and assuming we accept as beyond reasonable dispute the โ€˜scientific consensus on climate changeโ€™, Anthropogenic Global Warming theory, climate models, analyses and conclusions of the IPCC, the โ€˜internationally accepted authority on climate changeโ€™. Trusting the IPCC and believing such evidence and the frightening story it apparently tells is entirely rational and reasonable; in fact, why would any rational, reasonable person doubt it? On the face of it this evidence alone makes an irrefutable case in support of the existence of a climate crisis and itโ€™s surely not at all hard to understand why so many people accept it โ€“ and think that those who do not accept it (the so-called โ€˜climate deniersโ€™) are deluded, badly-informed, badly-intentioned, scientifically-illiterate, irresponsible fools (or are perhaps covertly in the pay of Big Oil).

But what if we donโ€™t just accept as โ€˜beyond reasonable disputeโ€™ the IPCCโ€™s โ€˜scientific consensus on climate changeโ€™, its Anthropogenic Global Warming theory, climate models, analyses and conclusions, but instead consider criticisms of them by โ€˜denierโ€™ scientists? In that case we find that the โ€˜simple and certainโ€™ climate crisis narrative unravels and becomes decidedly complex and uncertain. I deconstruct the ten statements above and set out some of the key complexities and uncertainties in my eBook, in which I conclude that we simply donโ€™t know (with a confidence level sufficient to inform climate policy)

  • whether carbon dioxide is the main (let alone sole) controller of the Earthโ€™s climate system
  • whether rising carbon dioxide levels are on balance good or bad for the planet and mankind
  • whether the post-industrialization global warming has been abnormal (even over the last 2,000 years)
  • how much of the post-industrialization global warming has been human-caused
  • whether global warming is currently accelerating
  • whether our warming climate system is on balance good or bad for the planet and mankind
  • how much of the post-industrialization sea level rise has been human-caused
  • whether the sea level rise is currently accelerating
  • whether global decarbonization would materially reduce future sea level rises โ€“ and whether global decarbonization is anyway the most cost-effective policy for addressing future sea level rise
  • whether the recent Arctic sea ice loss has been abnormal
  • how much of the recent Arctic sea ice loss has been human-caused
  • whether the Arctic sea ice loss is currently accelerating
  • whether recent extreme weather events have been abnormal
  • whether recent extreme weather events have been human-caused
  • whether extreme weather events will become significantly more frequent and intense as a result of global warming
  • whether exceeding 1.5ยบC of warming would be โ€˜dangerousโ€™
  • whether achieving net zero by 2050 (in order to limit warming to 1.5ยบC) is technically feasible (never mind geopolitically realistic)
  • whether achieving net zero by 2050 would materially improve the climate in this century
  • how much further global warming there will be this century and whether it might lead to โ€˜catastrophicโ€™ climate change.

All of this can be summarized in one word: doubt. Doubts about the reliability of the science, doubts about the reliability of the climate models, doubts about the scientific integrity and policy-neutrality of the IPCC, doubts about the scale of future warming, doubts about the scale of the climate change risks (i.e. doubts about the scale of the possible adverse impacts and the probability of their occurring), doubts about the wisdom of the 1.5ยบC warming โ€˜thresholdโ€™ โ€“ and doubts about the wisdom, not of decarbonization, but of precipitate and precipitous decarbonization (as epitomized by โ€˜net zero by 2050โ€™ policies) that may do more socioeconomic harm than good largely as a result of the vast transitional costs and societal impacts of such fast and radical decarbonization and the current lack of affordable and reliable carbon-neutral alternatives to fossil fuels. Basically, the โ€˜irrefutable evidenceโ€™ that there is a climate crisis is not, perhaps, so irrefutable. So when Antรณnio Guterres asks, โ€˜Can anybody still deny we are facing a dramatic emergency?โ€™, the answer is, yes, many people can โ€“ and for very good reasons.

The fundamental problem with the climate crisis narrative is that it is simplistic and gives us only one side of the story. It largely expunges all the  scientific complexities, unknowns and uncertainties, all the benefits of global warming and higher carbon dioxide levels, all the serious difficulties, costs, impacts and risks of rapidly eliminating fossil fuels โ€“ as well as expunging the option of simply adapting to living in a warmer world as an alternative (to net zero) policy response. It is as though man-made climate change had been put on trial in the court of public opinion on a charge of crimes against the planet and humanity (with a presumption of guilt) โ€“ but with only the prosecution case presented to the jury. It has apparently been found guilty, not on the basis of certainty, not on the basis of โ€˜beyond reasonable doubtโ€™, not even on the basis of โ€˜on the balance of probabilitiesโ€™ but simply on the basis of the possibility that it could be guilty, if not now, then in the future.

The โ€˜deniersโ€™ (more accurately described as โ€˜doubtersโ€™) think that the uncertainties in the science are very high, that the possible worst case climate change outcomes are extremely unlikely to occur and that the socioeconomic risks of trying to eradicate the possibility of such outcomes are unacceptably high. The โ€˜doomstersโ€™ (more accurately described as โ€˜believersโ€™) think that the uncertainties in the science are very low and that however unlikely the worst case outcomes might be they are nevertheless possible and are so very bad that the very high socioeconomic risks of trying to eradicate the possibility of such outcomes are almost irrelevant. Both positions are rational and reasonable and worthy of intelligent debate โ€“ there is no โ€˜correctโ€™ position. There does, however, appear to be a politically correct position and that, of course, is the position of the โ€˜doomstersโ€™. To put it another way, the statements, โ€˜Climate change is probably not a very serious problem but net zero by 2050 probably isโ€™ and โ€˜Climate change is possibly a very serious problem and net zero by 2050 possibly isnโ€™tโ€™ are not incompatible. Furthermore both sides agree that human activity, in particular our burning of fossil fuels, is contributing to a warming, changing climate โ€“ the debate is about how much we are contributing and how dangerous that warming actually is. On which basis there appears to be more uniting the two sides than dividing them.

Whether the IPCCโ€™s theory and climate models are reliable (at least reliable enough to be fit to inform climate policy) is just a matter of opinion. Whether carbon dioxide is the โ€˜control knobโ€™ of global warming is just a matter of opinion. How emissions will evolve this century is just a matter of opinion. Whether natural climate variability can partially (or even largely) explain the post-industrialization global warming is just a matter of opinion. Whether climate sensitivity is relatively low or high is just a matter of opinion. How much global warming there will be this century is just a matter of opinion. How much global warming is โ€˜dangerousโ€™ is just a matter of opinion. Whether renewables technology will evolve quickly to deliver affordable and reliable carbon-neutral alternatives to fossil fuels is just a matter of opinion. Whether climate policy should be predicated on plausible/likely outcomes or worst case possible outcomes is just a matter of opinion. There is no โ€˜rightโ€™ answer to the climate change problem.

In summary, believing that we are experiencing a climate crisis and so we must eradicate fossil fuels as fast as possible is rational and reasonable โ€“ as is doubting that we are experiencing a climate crisis and so we must be very circumspect about how deeply and how quickly we eradicate fossil fuels (because the radical decarbonization โ€˜cureโ€™ may be worse than the climate change โ€˜diseaseโ€™). That simple claim may horrify โ€˜deniersโ€™ and โ€˜doomstersโ€™ alike, who both tend to a belief that they have the monopoly on rationality and reasonableness โ€“ which is why accepting this would be an excellent first step to reducing the current polarization of attitudes to the issue. To approach the truth about climate change you really do need to hear both sides of the story โ€“ and they are both good stories. At the very least, given all these doubts, if a climate crisis really exists then it is a very curious one.

The crippling problem of renewable green energy cannot beย solved

More oil and gas production would help the current situation somewhatโ€”but also generate jobs and government revenue over the long run. Renewables are not well designed for responding to energy crises because they have no surge capacity.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t George Heraghty

From the Telegraph:

In a Net Zero world, what will we do when the wind isnโ€™t blowing? Environmentalists like to point out that we will have solar power as well, but of course the sun doesnโ€™t shine at night, so windless nights are a big problem.

Next, it is suggested that we can store electricity. But in winter we frequently get long wind lulls, and with the sun low in the sky, there will be little or no solar power either. These so-called โ€œdunkelflautesโ€ mean little or no electricity supply from the renewables fleet.

A dunkelflaute can last for weeks. That means you need huge, unfeasible quantities of electricity storage. The Royal Society recently concluded weโ€™d need enough to cover more than two monthsโ€™ demand, and, whatever storage technology is adopted, this isnโ€™t going to be affordable or probably even possible. The Royal Societyโ€™s numbers suggest weโ€™d need to deliver a project equivalent in size to HS2 every year, forever. Worse, that number is likely to be hugely understated, because the reportโ€™s authors used extraordinarily optimistic projections of what might happen to costs and efficiencies in the next 25 years. Using assumptions grounded in the technologies and costs prevalent today, weโ€™d conclude that weโ€™d need six monthsโ€™ storage, and would have to settle ongoing annual bills equivalent to five HS2 projects per year.

Itโ€™s a huge problem, which makes the idea of Net Zero a hard sell. One of the wheezes dreamt up by the greens to make the costs look a bit smaller is to assume that we will get a significant proportion of our electricity down the โ€œinterconnectorsโ€ โ€“ the big cables that connect the UK grid to our European neighbours, or which would stitch together the various grids of North America. There are already several international interconnections in operation โ€“ from the UK to Norway, France, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands โ€“ as well as others bringing power from region to region. More are on the way.

However, as with so much of the energy โ€œtransitionโ€, there is a lot of wishful thinking going on.

Firstly, it is glibly assumed that the electricity delivered down interconnectors is zero-emission. Remarkably, this is the case, no matter how many coal-fired power stations are in operation on the continental grid at the time. In other words, replacing an idle wind farm in the UK with a coal-fired power station in Belgium would be assumed to represent an emissions-reducing move.

Secondly, it is assumed (in equally glib fashion) that the continental grid will always have power to spare for the UK, and that there will always be power to spare somewhere in the USA. This is simply not the case. Firstly, if it is midnight in the UK, it is dark across the whole of Europe. If it is two AM in New York it is midnight in Los Angeles, so nobody is going to be generating any solar power.

Secondly, although we are frequently told that โ€œthe wind is always blowing somewhereโ€, weather systems are extremely large things and they frequently affect whole continents. As a result, wind speeds are highly correlated across any continent; if thereโ€™s no wind in the UK, the chances are high that itโ€™s not windy anywhere nearby either.

Even if the continent is windy when itโ€™s calm in the UK, or if itโ€™s windy in Texas when itโ€™s calm in California, the ability to send power where itโ€™s needed depends on there being surplus generating capacity in the precise place where the wind is blowing.

If, say, itโ€™s windy in Scandinavia but the rest of Europe is experiencing a lull, you need enough spare windfarms in the Baltic and Nordic seas to meet demand from almost half a billion people. Thatโ€™s a huge amount of windfarms. Then again, the windy spot might be in the Atlantic, off the coast of Iberia. So youโ€™d need to build the same enormous number windfarms again, this time off the coast of Portugal. The again, and again โ€“ basically every local neighbourhood would have to have enough capacity to supply the entire continent. Hopefully this shows that the idea is rather ridiculous.

The same arguments apply to the idea of getting power from further afield. There is a currently a proposal to build an interconnector to Morocco, where the stiff breezes found in the seas off the Atlantic seaboard and deserts full of solar panels will, it is claimed, deliver an electricity bonanza. Unfortunately, as I write, wind speeds are rather low across most of Europe, while off the Western seaboard of Morocco they are โ€ฆ even lower. Itโ€™s gusty off Portugal though.

A lack of generating capacity in the right place is only one of the problems with interconnectors. They also turn out to be rather unreliable. For example, the Western Link, one of the interconnectors from England to the South of Scotland has failed regularly in its short lifetime, going down for months at a time, causing nightmares for grid managers tasked with making up the difference. Similarly, the IFA1 interconnector to France was hit by a fire in 2021, losing half of its capacity for a period of more than a year. Of course, any part of the electricity grid can suffer an outage, but the loss of an interconnector can take out a significant proportion of supply for long periods.

Worse still, interconnectors represent a risk to security of supply in other ways. Those long cables, hidden deep beneath the waves, are an inviting target for hostile powers. Just last week, a small flotilla from the navies of several European nations was scrambled to an area adjacent to the East Anglia One windfarm, after a Russian vessel was seen to be hanging around the area. We canโ€™t know if it was sizing up the windfarmโ€™s grid connection or the adjacent gas pipeline, but the point is the same; it is very hard to protect subsea infrastructure from sabotage (and impossible when it is a thousand-mile cable from here to Morocco).

The problem of what to do when the wind isnโ€™t blowing and the sun isnโ€™t shining is all but insurmountable. In technological terms, the only feasible solution is a vast fleet of windfarms and a gigantic store of green hydrogen, along the lines envisaged by the Royal Society. However, barring a series of dramatic technological breakthroughs, the costs would make the recent energy price crisis look like nothing.

Itโ€™s high time to put a stop to the wishful thinking on Net Zero.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/31/green-energy-solar-wind-renewable-energy-interconnector/

Michael Kelly is Emeritus Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the Royal Academy of Engineering, of the Royal Society of New Zealand, of the Institute of Physics and of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, as well as Senior Member of the Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineering in the USA

Indonesia Shelves Decarbonization for Prosperity and Security

Indonesiaโ€™s sizable export income has been made possible by the global need for coal and nickel.ย Jakarta plans to introduceย a carbon tax inย Aprilย on coal-fired power plants andย other targets. The emissions trading market is expected to be put into place shortly.

An electric vehicle (EV) boom is underway. It is driving huge growth in demand for battery minerals, especially nickel. EV market forces and regulators will require that mineral supply chains have a low carbon footprint. Much of the nickel that will feed the EV boom in the next decade will come from Indonesia. But Indonesia has a carbon problem that will need substantial international funding and technology to resolve.

From Watts Up With That?

Guest essay by Vijay Jayaraj

Over the past few decades, Indonesia, an archipelagic nation made up of over 17,000 islands, has seen amazing economic progress. The strategic utilization of fossil fuels is a key factor at the center of this growth.

Indonesia is a significant user of coal as well as the worldโ€™s third-largest producer of the mineral.  But just like other countries, it faces immense pressure from entities like the United Nations and anti-fossil fuel leaders in the West to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of industrial activity.

Rich countries led by the U.S. and Japan offered Indonesia a $20 billion package in 2022 to persuade the coal-dependent nation to transition off fossil fuels. In November 2022, the countryโ€™s leadership signed the agreement known as the Just Energy Transition Partnership, which was expected to formally ratify the nationโ€™s move away from coal.

However, almost a year later, the island nation appears to be going the opposite direction as it embraces fossil fuels for energy security. In 2022, Indonesia used more coal than ever and is looking to produce even more this year.

Indonesiaโ€™s coal consumption will rise steadily until 2029 due to the construction of new coal-fired power plants. As per Global Energy Monitor, nearly 19 gigawatts of coal power were under construction at the end of 2022. If the status quo prevails, the country is expected to retain its ranking as the sixth largest emitter of CO2 in the world.

Coal, Nickel, and Asian Energy Security

A plentiful supply of coal, oil and natural gas has had a significant impact on Indonesiaโ€™s economic development and is now crucial for boosting the economy and lowering poverty.

For this reason, the country continues to increase the installed capacity of fossil fuel-powered technologies. Since 2015, the highest share of increase in electrical generation capacity has been in fossil fuels, not renewables. In 2022, almost 90 percent of the countryโ€™s primary energy came from coal, oil and gas.

Among these, oil and coal provide the majority of the countyโ€™s primary energy, with the latterโ€™s contribution being 45 percent. Not only is Indonesiaโ€™s coal output essential to the countryโ€™s energy security but it is also for Asiaโ€™s. The nation is on course to produce in 2023 695 million tons, of which 518 million tons will be exported. Some of the largest buyers of Indonesian coal are China, India, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea.

China and India, two of the worldโ€™s biggest economies that mostly rely on coal-fired power plants, benefit the most from Indonesiaโ€™s exports of coal. With its share increasing to two-thirds in 2022, Indonesia solidified its position as Indiaโ€™s top foreign supplier of thermal coal. For the foreseeable future, Indonesia intends to keep mining its reserves, as neither China nor India are exhibiting signs of reducing their reliance on coal.

Itโ€™s also vital to remember that Indonesia is the number one producer of nickel, an essential part of batteries that power EVs and energy storage systems globally. In 2022, half of the worldโ€™s nickel production came from Indonesia.

The production of nickel in Indonesia is largely dependent on smelters that use coal energy, which makes the nation even more dependent on the fuel. The adoption of EVs and batteries in Europe and North America suggest that the demand for coal-enabled nickel production will continue in Indonesia.

Indonesiaโ€™s sizable export income has been made possible by the global need for coal and nickel. This wealth has been essential for funding development initiatives, maintaining Indonesiaโ€™s trade balance and adding to its foreign exchange reserves.

There is no way Indonesia will choose to kill a booming economy for a $20 billion handout to fund a so-called energy transition.

This commentary was first published at Real Clear Energy, October 30, 2023, and can be accessed here.

Vijay Jayarajย is a Research Associate at theย CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a masterโ€™s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, UK.